PRESS RELEASE: Petition signatures for ballot measure to include health and safety on oil and gas in city charter deemed sufficient to move forward

(Broomfield, CO) On Monday afternoon, the Broomfield County Clerk informed Broomfield Health and Safety First – a group of residents seeking to amend the Broomfield Charter – that they had obtained sufficient signatures to move forward with the proposed ballot measure. The Broomfield County Clerk accepted 2,847 of the signatures submitted for the initiative. The group needed 2,435 signatures to be approved for the November ballot.

The measure to amend the city charter states:

With regard to oil and gas development near the City’s populated areas and within the City’s boundaries, such powers shall include but not be limited to plenary authority to regulate all aspects of oil and gas development, including land use and all necessary police powers. As such, Broomfield shall condition oil and gas development permits to require oil and gas development to only occur in a manner that does not adversely impact the health, safety, and welfare of Broomfield’s residents in their workplaces, their homes, their schools, and public parks in order to protect the public’s health, safety, and welfare and to safeguard the environment and wildlife resources.

For Judy Kelly of Anthem Ranch, “This ballot measure lets Broomfield voters weigh in and express their priorities on how they want our city to approach oil and gas. It provides our council with another tool through our charter that guides how they address oil and gas development in our community.”

Recently, the Broomfield City Council unanimously supported protesting the spacing unit applications for 120 wells submitted by Extraction Oil and Gas. Jean Lim of Wildgrass stated, “We applaud the City Council for supporting these protests of the spacing unit applications in order to give the Oil and Gas Update Committee and Council time to complete the process to inform the City’s MOU negotiations with oil and gas companies. We see the charter amendment as another way to support the adopted Update Committee recommendations going forward.”

For Neil Allaire, one of the Broomfield residents who filed the petition, “this is a very simple question. What is more important than the health and safety of the people of Broomfield? Of course oil and gas development needs to be done in a way that “does not adversely impact” our health and safety. How could you think otherwise?”

The proposed measure will be on the City Council agenda for August 22nd where they will set the title language for the ballot measure.